By Johanna Bennett

Here are some things going on today in your world of tech:

Blackberry (BBRY) plunged 15.8% to $6.54 after new broke Monday morning that the ailing smartphone maker has ended plans to find a buyer and instead plans to raise $1 billion and replace CEO Thorsten Heins. Previous reports Fairfax Financial was attempting to raise financing for its own $4.7 billion bid. Instead, Fairfax and an unnamed group of institutional investors will invest $1 billion through debentures, which can be converted into common stock.

More news out today on Twitter (TWTR). With its initial public offering scheduled for Wednesday, Twitter increased the price of its expected initial public offering of 70 million shares, bringing the offering’s value to up to $1.75 billion. The messaging-service company now expects its shares to price between $23 to $25 a share, up from its prior range of $17 to $20 a share, for a maximum of $1.61 billion set two weeks ago.

In a feature article published this weekend, Barron’s editor Andrew Bary warned against paying more than $30 a share for the stock (see, “Twitter IPO Looks Promising,” Nov. 2).

Meanwhile, Twitter was initiated at Overweight by Atlantic Securities.

Google’s(GOOG) executive chairman isn’t mincing his words. The WSJreports that Eric Schmidt has lambasted the slammed reports that the U.S. government allegedly spied on the company’s data centers, describing such an act as “outrageous.”

Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) fell 3% to $3.77 on news the telecom equipment maker plans to raise $1.3 billion in a secondary offering, and $750 million dollars from high-yield bonds, as Alcatel struggles to revamp its finances. Meanwhile, UBS upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral and Exane BNP Paribas raised its rating to Neutral from Underperform.

Other Upgrades & Downgrades:

Salesforce.com (CRM) rose 0.7% to $54.46 after Atlantic Equities upgraded the shares to Overweight from Neutral.

Qlik Tech (QLIK) jumped 5.1% to $26.32 after Citigroup upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral.

Digital Realty Trust (DLR) fell 1.5% to $47.76 after Robert W. Baird downgraded the stock to Neutral from Outperform.

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There are 4 comments

NOVEMBER 4, 2013 11:29 A.M.

Anonymous wrote:

Timmy? Timmy? wake up. are you OK?

NOVEMBER 4, 2013 4:25 P.M.

Anonymous wrote:

Timmy & Freddy,
Can Mr Chen do it?

NOVEMBER 4, 2013 5:03 P.M.

Anonymous wrote:

Mr Chen didn't exactly engineer Sybase into a sale. It was so broken, he just waited for the phone to ring and took bids. this is a waaaay different business model. wrong guy.

NOVEMBER 5, 2013 4:14 P.M.

Why are Chen and Watsa attracted to Blackberry? wrote:

The situation is hyper intense. It's very stimulating. It's a great challenge. And it requires a certain survivalist's mind set. Although. Even if this thing fails. It's hardly the end of the world. It's only money and it's other people's money. I'm surprised more guys aren't seeking out stuff like this. It's a perfect excuse to demand the best and to boot out the rest. That's a simple formula from the get go. And long ago they should have done that at RIM. No names. No names. But the board still is too heavy. They should be dumped over. Made to walk the plank. Argh matey.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.